


The Jaeger, the Kirstein, and the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

by HARUBI



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Charms prof Erwin, DADA prof Levi, Gen, Harry Potter AU, Herbology prof Neville, Immaturity, M/M, NO JEAN AND EREN ROMANCE, Potions prof Mike, Supposed to be funny, Transfiguration Prof Petra, a whole lot of silly, and a lot of erejean being partners in crime, and a lot of fire, because they're actual brothers, but there will probably be other romantic things, i like levi, probably literally, that would be incest, yay for hot magical teachers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-06 05:48:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11029914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HARUBI/pseuds/HARUBI
Summary: Eren and Jean are two sort-of special kids who just don't know it yet. They're twins, they're orphans, they hate each other, and they're wizards.They also like to set things on fire a lot.Nothing ever seems to go right when they're in the same room, but the magical school is soon going to find out that a little bit of fire is exactly what they need to spice things up... And destroy a lot of school property.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ChromeHoplite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChromeHoplite/gifts).



> To my favoritest pal, the Dumb to my Dumber, the River to my Doctor, who always inspires me and keeps me writing! I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!
> 
> And to Audric, whose infectious smile makes flowers bloom and the sun hang its head in shame! You are the most magical creature to grace the lives of us Muggles, and I hope you never stop smiling!
> 
>  
> 
> -From the silly aunt and her adorable pup from America

In Eren’s world, there were two types of twins. There were twins who loved each other to death, who could finish each other’s sentences and share everything together, who could feel in their bones when the other is sick or feeling down. There were twins who were like two halves of a whole, a Yin and a Yang, complete with each other.  
And then there were twins like Jean and him. Twins who hated each other to death, who could barely stand being in the same room together, let alone talk and finish each other’s sentences. The only way they finished each other’s sentences was when a fist went flying. The only thing they shared were genetics, and the only way they felt the other feeling sick or down was when their knuckles were bruised and their own eyes were swelling with pain as well. They were twins who were like Coca Cola and Mentos. Just one second of contact, and it was instant explosion.

So, to get a very special letter one day, and find out that Jean had gotten the very same one, only resulted in another fist fight. A deadly chemical reaction like coke and Mentos, however, dangerous as it was, was the most powerful weapon one could have if war came along and a convenience store was all that was left. And in a war zone like Hogwarts, Eren and Jean found that they could be a Yin and a Yang as well, albeit a deadly one.

 

  
“I know I said I didn’t want that oaf Zackley to chaperone us, but how the hell do we get to Diagon Alley?” Eren complained.

The instructions were simple. At the beginning of August, the two of them, with permission, were going to leave the orphanage grounds, head over to Diagon Alley, and pick up all their supplies. The school, understanding their status as Muggle-born orphans, had granted them a scholarship of sorts. They literally just had to go to the shops and pick up their supplies. The only problem was, the map that came with their admissions letter kept pointing them to a pub called the Leaky Cauldron.

“I think we should ask an adult,” Jean suggested.  
  
“Seriously? What do you think will happen if two kids in oversized secondhand clothes went up to a stranger and asked them where the magic alley was?”  
  
“It was just a damn suggestion!”  
  
“It’s a stupid one!”  
  
“Like you have anything better!”  
  
“Are you two looking for Diagon Alley?”  
  
The twins squeaked in surprise at the gruff voice, then yelped again at the scruffy man looking down at them.  
  
“My name is Mike Zacharias, Hogwarts professor of Potions. I assume this is your first year?”  
  
“Yes,” Jean squeaked. He meant to be brave, he really did. But the man with scruffy blond hair in front of them in an odd robe was just so terrifyingly tall, and they couldn’t see his eyes, so he could have been a demon ghost for all they knew.  
  
“Follow me, then.”  
  
Eren was pretty sure that Zackley had told them not to follow strangers, but he figured that if it came to it, he and Jean could beat the shit out of this suspicious teacher.  
  
They followed the tall man into the pub they’d been standing in front of, immediately hit with the warmth of a fireplace in one corner. Eren had not smelled the burning firewood from outside, but it was as strong as the inside of a winter cabin inside the pub. At least, that’s what Eren imagined a winter cabin would be like. He’s never been to one. With a few greeting here and there, and a slap on the back to a particularly angry looking man who flicked him the finger for it, the man led them past the tables to a back door, where he stared at a brick wall, counting the bricks.  
  
“Can non-magic people find this place?” Jean asked, just as the man pulled out a stick from one of his pockets.  
  
“Of course not. This place is specifically enchanted for only people with magic to be able to see it, let alone pass through the barrier. Muggles would only see a blank wall where the pub entrance is.”  
  
The man tapped a brick, and the entire wall folded itself back to reveal an archway into a different street.  
  
“Then why don’t you put up a sign saying this is the way to Diagon Alley? It’s totally inconvenient.”  
  
“And the brick, too. Next time, can I put a sticker on it? It’s silly to count the bricks all the time,” Eren added. He had some nice stickers he’d stolen from a stationery shop a while ago and had nowhere to use it.  
  
“The discretion is to protect our community from invasion, children,” The man explained, leading them in through the arch. On the other side, there were many more people dressed like him, in drab cloaks and pointy hats.  
  
“Invasion from what? People without magic? Muggles, did you call them? Is that an insult like ‘asshole’?” Jean pressed.  
  
“From anyone who tries to harm us. And no, ‘muggles’ simply mean non-magic folk.”  
  
“Well… That’s a silly defense then,” Eren stated, staring at a girl passing by with a black crow perched on her shoulder.  
  
“I mean, think about it. ‘Muggles’,” Eren air-quoted, rolling his eyes, “don’t even know you exist. Wizards and witches do. So the only ones who want to hurt you would be other wizards and witches, who, by the way, would have learned the brick tapping trick from the moment they started school. What’s the point in that? Do you ever change your brick password?”  
  
“I- Er… I guess not.”  
  
Eren and Jean liked being right. Smiling smugly, Eren turned back around to look at the shop windows in front of them.  
  
“It’s okay, you can thank me later,” He said, patting the professor’s arm consolingly, “Now, take us to get our stuff.”  
  
  
  
The first place they went to was Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions. It was, to put it lightly, overwhelming. Never had the two orphans ever had to get fitted for anything. They never even had new clothes, and didn’t even expect anything to fit them. There were needles and thread and fabric floating everywhere, and they were measured before they had taken five steps in.  
  
“Do you have this in green?” Eren asked when the seamstress magically levitated a length of black fabric, “Black isn’t really my color.”  
  
She laughed, and proceeded to give him his robe in black. Eren was right, black was not his color at all.  
  
“Do you have another style?” Jean asked, not liking the drapery look at all, “These are gonna drag… Can’t the uniform just be something like pants and a shirt, like normal people?”  
  
He was given the same robe, and he felt like the seamstress must have done something to the hem of his. Every time he took a step, he kept slightly stepping on it.  
  
“Now, the headmaster has sponsored those outfits for you, so you don’t need to pay, but when you become eligible for the Yule Ball, you’ll have to bring your own coins to get fitted again!”  
  
“Mule balls?” Eren grimaced in disgust. Jean didn’t bother correcting him, mostly because he didn’t understand either, and their sort-of chaperone did not seem to have heard.  
  
They went to Ollivander’s next, which was a disaster all on their own. Apparently, both of them were extremely strong conduits of energy, according to Mr. Ollivander Jr., who had recently taken over for his retiring grandfather. Every wrong wand meant a fire in the ceiling or a sonic boom, and the poor shop owner had to do that twice. Somewhere during that time, their sort-of chaperone had slipped out of the shop unnoticed. Eren finally bonded with a very dark and thick wand, something about ebony and pheonix feather, and Jean’s own search ended with a very white wand, ash with a unicorn core. The shop owner also seemed to mention something about their wands being very powerful or something, but the warning was lost under the twins’ glee over having wands.  
  
“Abracadabra!” Eren yelled, swooshing the wand, and he broke the storefront window, and Jean, also excitedly swinging his wand around, had accidentally set fire (again) to the drapes. At least they most likely won’t ever have to visit the shop again, Jean thought as the owner begged them to just leave.  
  
The professor guy was waiting for them outside with two paper bags of pastries.  
  
“I am very much looking forward to having the two of you in my classes,” he said in an amused tone, looking inside the broken shop window and the fire inside it.  
  
“Oh. I don’t like teachers, though. But I guess you’re alright,” Eren added as an afterthought, taking a big bite of whatever it was. It tasted like pumpkin, but in the magical world who knew if that was actually pumpkin-flavored dog poop? At least it tasted good.  
  
The rest of their chores were a breeze (compared to the nearly-wrecked wand shop). They received their books, already pre-packed and set aside for them to pick up, and picking familiars wasn’t hard, though Eren and Jean nearly wrecked the shop arguing about who gets to have the raven and that the other person wasn’t allowed to have the same. In the muggle world, this wouldn’t have done too much damage, but with the new magic users brazenly flinging around their unstable wands at each other, it was really a miracle that they hadn’t killed anyone yet. The scruffy professor finally confiscated their wands, saving the poor shop owner and the unfortunate familiars, and nobody was allowed to have a raven. They went to the Eeylops Owl Emporium instead, and each got an owl of their choice, Eren a Brown Owl and Jean a Barn Owl. Eren, imitating the girl he had seen before, immediately let his owl out of its cage in an attempt to perch it on his shoulder, but it flew away.  
  
“The owl hates me!!! I should have gotten a raven instead!!” Eren wailed in the middle of the street, stomping his foot as Jean snickered. He was only glad he was slow to open his own cage, having had the same idea.  
  
“The owl knows you, so it will be back, I promise,” the professor told him, but Eren refused to accept it. With loud sniffles and several tantrum spurts, they ended up sitting under the shade of a tree, where the Brown Owl did indeed return, a dead mouse in its beak.  
  
“Oh, what an intelligent hunter you are!” He cooed immediately, wiping away his tears with a smile like he had not just thrown a tantrum all throughout town.  
  
  
  
There was no such thing as a Platform 9 3/4 at the King’s Cross Station. As the friendly employee had pointed out for them, the only thing between Platform 9 and Platform 10 was a wall.  
  
“Seriously? Which brick do we have to tap to open _this_ one?” Jean sighed, pulling out his wand, and set about tapping each brick. Eren started tapping as well, and by the time they got to all the bricks they could reach, they were more than ready to just slam their way through the wall.  
  
“This is so stupid!” Eren, in a fit of sudden rage and anger, punched the wall, and in a blink, disappeared before Jean’s very eyes.  
  
Jean sighed, suddenly annoyed.  
  
“God, Eren, don’t leave your stupid bags with me!”  
  
Slamming Eren’s cart in through the wall first after carefully placing Marley’s cage onto his own cart beside Eldia, since the owl had done no wrong, Jean followed in.  
  
“What is wrong with these people? Eren fumed, “Can’t they put signs up? I’m sure there must be a voodoo spell or something to make them invisible to other people… And proper doorways, too!”  
  
“Just get your things, idiot,” Jean pushed the neglected cart towards the boy, pushing his own past him and towards the grand red train in front of him.  
  
The train was shiny and huge, and there were all sorts of people around him, people with similar robes hugging parents goodbye, floating baggage, weird sparklers that followed some poor boy’s butt no matter how much he tried to swat it away… It was nothing different from what they were used to seeing back at school. Kids being dropped off by parents who loved them, hugs and kisses and stern warnings laced with affection. The only one who took care of them were each other.  
  
Ignoring the slight pang of loneliness, Jean pushed on until he reached the baggage employee whisking away everyone’s stuff into seemingly nowhere.  
  
With just their carry-on suitcases left, Eren and Jean, both subdued by the family atmosphere all around them, wordlessly stepped into the train to find an empty compartment. While both of them were usually loud and boisterous and proud of who they were, sometimes it still was a bit overwhelming when they were so painfully reminded that they were orphans and nobody really loved them. Not Zackley, not Mrs. Higgins who owned the orphanage, certainly not those government social workers who came to check up on them every once in a while. And most definitely not their own mother and father, who had left them just outside the gates of a church on a warm spring evening, when the world was painted with the vibrant hues of flowers.  
  
“God, I already hate school,” Eren grumbled as he tossed his suitcase into the empty compartment and fell back into his seat.  
  
Jean lay down on the other set of seats, haphazardly shutting the door behind him, tugging up the hood of his sweater. He felt incredibly underdressed, especially whenever he caught sight of anyone who seemed to be like them, new to the school and completely unaware of what to expect. They probably came dressed in their best first-day clothes… And Jean, he really only had five sets of outfits to choose from, and had to wash them every weekend if he wanted anything to wear the following week.  
  
A few minutes of mutual silence later, a quiet knock was heard on their door, and it slid open just a bit as Jean and Eren straightened up.  
  
“Is there a seat available?”  
  
A short and very pale blond boy with big eyes asked.  
  
“No,” Eren coldly said, putting his legs up on the leftover seats. Honestly, the two of them were more than okay with sharing the space with another person, but a part of them felt bitter about the fact that they had to sit with someone who actually has a family.  
  
“Oh, thanks anyways,” the boy quietly closed the door again. Timid boys like that always made them feel guilty. They were so easy to tease, what with their lack of fighting spirit. And the boy was just begging for someone to dunk him in the toilet with that bowl cut. Eren actually worried for him.  
  
A few minutes later, the door slid open again, just as the whistle sounded and the noise of parents and students bidding farewell to each other grew louder. The same boy peeked in with a timid smile.  
  
“I won’t take up too much space. Can I please join you?”  
  
The train began moving, and Jean warily glanced out the window, looking at people waving.  
  
“You don’t have anyone to wave to?”  
  
“Not really. My grandpa’s too sick to leave home.”  
  
Something about the fact that he mentioned a grandpa and not parents got the twins’ seal of approval, giving each other a look of agreement. Eren scooted up his feet just a little bit, and pointed.  
  
“That’s your seat, then.”  
  
“Thanks,” the boy smiled, entering the space and carefully shutting the door behind him. “My name is Armin.”  
  
“Jean.”  
  
“Eren.”  
  
The boy smiled again, slipping into the space Eren pompously assigned to him as the train began to pick up speed. The boy was very small, and Jean bet that he was probably one of those people who got picked on a lot at school. That was something he and Eren had plenty of experience with, being teased for being orphans, and that nobody liked them, that they were trash.  
  
“Do you guys want some chocolate frogs? I brought them from home. I’ve got some sandwiches too, and a bit of apple juice.”  
  
The twins silently decided this angelic kid giving them food was now under their protection.  
  
Armin handed the two of them a box, and Eren immediately tore it open, eager to bite down onto chocolate, a pretty rare treat for poor orphans like him. Immediately, the chocolate frog hopped out of the box and onto his face, which had Jean cackling, before his own frog did the same. The two chocolate frogs hopped all around the room as Eren angrily slapped his hand everywhere. Jean just sat there, feeling a little bit disgusted.  
  
“How the hell do you even eat this thing!” Eren growled, pouncing on the frog on the floor. The intelligent chocolate hopped away and squeezed itself out through the small opening on the window, flying off into the blurry landscape. Eren roared.  
  
The second frog, supposedly Jean’s, hopped out from behind a suitcase, and landed on Jean’s lap, staring at him. Jean cringed, flailing his hands a bit.  
  
“Get it off!” He squeaked, and Eren immediately pounced on it. The chocolate frog hopped and landed on Jean’s face, who screamed, before crawling under the cushions of the seat.  
  
“What the hell?? How do you even eat that?” Eren roared, angrily turning to Armin, who was trying very hard to stifle a giggle behind his hand.  
  
“You two are muggle-borns?”  
  
“Yeah, got a problem with that??” Eren said, his volume still loud and his rage meter rising.  
  
“No, I just didn’t know. Are you two twins?”  
  
At that, Eren and Jean stared at him incredulously. They had never met anyone who figured that out with just a look before.  
  
“How’d you know?”  
  
The petite blond shrugged.  
  
“You both have really pretty amber eyes, and your tempers are the same. And sometimes you two do this thing where you kind of just look at each other and the air changes a little.”  
  
The chocolate frog, back for vengeance, hopped up on Jean’s lap again. He swore the little shit was leering at him. Jean whimpered, cringing as Eren focused his gaze onto the frog with a near-feral grin, even wiggling his butt a little in preparation of his pounce.  
  
Eren leaped, and the frog jumped out the window.  
  
“How can you stand biting off that frog’s head?” Jean squeaked, thoroughly nauseated by the idea of having to bite down onto a moving frog, even if it was magical and made of chocolate.  
  
“Is that even sanitary at this point?” Eren grumbled as he slumped back into his seat, not acknowledging that he was the only one who kept making a go at catching it.  
  
“Probably not, but it doesn’t run away if you shake the box.”  
  
Armin, pulling out another box, shook it a few times, opened it, pulled out the paralyzed frog, then bit down on its head. Jean nearly puked.  
  
  
  
“What’s wrong with him?” One of the professors asked when Armin guided a pale Jean towards the carriages. The robes they had to change into before disembarking only accentuated his paleness.  
  
“Just a little train-sick,” Armin simply explained as Eren snickered. If he hadn’t been feeling so scarred by the memory of the innocent looking boy biting off the head of a chocolate frog so boldly, Jean would have done something about it.  
  
They more or less quietly reached the Great Hall without incident, though Jean nearly hurled again when a fellow first year nearby snuck out a chocolate frog from inside her robe and stuffed the wiggling thing whole into her mouth. That kind of put off Eren too, but he wasn’t going to admit that, especially in front of his brother. Jean was too busy keeping his stomach from hurling to really see much, but Eren was impressed by the decor of the school. Sure, it was a little bit outdated, nothing like the stuff in the interior magazines stashed in the orphanage offices, but it was cool in its own way. It looked like the secret lair of a superhero, and he, now a proud wielder of magic, was something like a superhero now. The ceiling with all its stars were especially nice, but kind of an impractical waste of magic juice in his opinion. Barely anyone ever looked up at the ceiling when they ate, did they?  
  
The lot of them were standing in a row in front of the rest of the school, already seated with their respective houses. As the first few first year students went up to the stool, putting on the hat that put them into houses, Jean queasily wondered, couldn’t they just do the whole House picking before they came to the school? Or at least without a grand audience? It was embarrassing, and Jean really just wanted to hurry up and sit down. And he had the unsettling feeling that he may vomit in front of the whole school. Eren just thought the screeching hat was a little annoying.  
  
Armin was immediately placed in Ravenclaw, which was good, Eren supposed. Armin had said his family had a tendency to place in Slytherin due to their pureblood heritage, but he didn’t like snakes. Apparently, his grandpa thought the best way for young Armin to get over his fear of snakes was releasing them into his bed in the middle of the night. The girl with a ponytail who had stuffed a whole chocolate frog into her mouth just before entering the Great Hall was placed in Hufflepuff, and Jean muttered under his breath that he’d die before joining that house.  
  
“Eren Jaeger.”  
  
He proudly sauntered up to the stool, waiting for the hat to be placed on his head.  
  
“So I’m annoying, eh?” A voice murmured in his ear, “I’ve a mind to just expel you on the spot…”  
  
Just try it, Eren mentally challenged. He was a natural-born rebel, and he was already thinking up how to toss the hat into a washing machine and see how he’d like being forced into places he didn’t enjoy.  
  
“I can do more than simply expel you, fearless child,” The hat whispered, but just moments later, it yelled, “Gryffindor!”  
  
Eren smirked as he sauntered over to the red-and-gold decorated table, thinking it as his victory against the hat.  
  
“Jean Kirstein.”  
  
Slowly making his way up to the stool, he briefly caught sight of Armin’s confused looks from the Ravenclaw tables. Had they been closer friends, maybe Jean might have explained it to the boy, but they’d only just met. It wasn’t that easy to pour out one’s 10 year life story to someone after watching a chocolate frog be so cruelly decapitated. And anyways, there wasn’t much to tell. Their orphanage simply gave them different last names in hopes of raising their chances of being adopted without becoming a package deal with his brother.  
  
The hat was placed onto his head, and Jean felt his stomach churn once more from the musty smell, and he groaned.  
  
“Don’t you dare,” a low voice hissed into his ear, and the proximity of the voice only made it worse.  
  
Just hurry up, Jean mentally begged. He didn’t even care how the hat was picking houses for people, he just wanted it to be over. He could feel all the people watching him, and while he wasn’t that averse to attention, he was never one to really enjoy the spotlight the way Eren did. Especially when he was about to puke into the Sorting Hat.  
  
“Gryffindor!”  
  
He slid into a seat beside Eren, who grinned.  
  
“This is the best house ever,” he said, already fired up to defend his house to the death, 5 minutes into joining it.  
  
  
  
The Fat Lady stared down at them.  
  
“I feel like she’s watching me,” Eren loudly said, and the whole group of Gryffindor first years stared at him.  
  
“Um, she IS staring at you,” One of them stated.  
  
Now it was Eren and Jean’s turn to stare at them.  
  
“Well, yeah, pictures tend to do that, but she’s seriously looking at me.”  
  
“She is.”  
  
Eren squinted his eyes at the Fat Lady, stoically staring back.  
  
“I don’t know… Her eyes are kind of crossed, and she might be staring up, too…”  
  
“Excuse me???” The Fat Lady sputtered, fanning herself in offense, and Eren gaped.  
  
“Is this a TV screen?? Some elaborate hologram??”  
  
He patted the canvas disbelievingly, and when he patted the Fat Lady’s dress, she shrieked.  
  
“Don’t touch me, you insolent boy!”  
  
“What in the world?”  
  
“You two are Muggle-borns?” The prefect asked, amused. Eren nodded. Several kids chuckled as well, whispering among themselves. Jean decided he already kind of  
hated them.  
  
“All manner of portraits and photographs from the magical world can move. You can talk to them, too, but don’t expect them to stay in their frames all the time. They need breaks, too.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“Also, the Fat Lady happens to hide the Gryffindor's entrance, so you need to give her the password to enter. It would be best if you stay on her good side.”  
  
Eren had the feeling he was already on her bad side, given the seething glare she gave him before swinging the frame open.  
  
  
  
The common room looked very warm and inviting, a roaring fireplace and cozy looking armchairs, but the students had almost no time to feel the heat of the fire as they were whisked off into their dormitories. Which was good for Jean because he’d completely lost his appetite when he realized that the school gave them roasted bats. He wanted something other than pumpkin juice, too, but he didn’t know how to ask for a different drink when his stupid goblet kept auto-refilling itself. He was tired of being shocked by all these magic foods, and just wanted to sleep. Eren also needed a bed, his stomach too heavy to walk another step. They had never had that much food even available to them back in the orphanage, and Eren ate the way he always did— As though this was the last decent meal he might get for another few days. Anything was better than potato goop and boiled cabbages. Nevermind that this was a fried lizard or those were walking drumsticks, he ate like there was no tomorrow. And now he feels like he may not have a tomorrow.  
  
Their bags were already set atop their assigned beds, and Eren, blinking away the blank haze of a full stomach, frowned at the sight.  
  
“I want a window bed,” He complained to no one in particular.  
  
Jean had a window bed. He honestly didn’t care for window beds or not, but when Eren looked at him expectantly, it lit a rebellious fire inside him, as it usually was prone to do.  
  
“That’s too bad,” he sneered at his big-eyed brother. Eren narrowed his eyes, scowling.  
  
“Why do you always get the good stuff?”  
  
“Maybe I deserve it.”  
  
“I’m just as good as you! We’re twins!”  
  
“I can give you my bed,” One guy offered, but Eren was already riled up.  
  
“No! I want THIS bed!”  
  
“You can’t have it,” Jean sneered.  
  
“Give it to me!” Eren pointed his wand at Jean, who took out his own.  
  
“No.”  
  
Eren swished his wand, and yelped when some weird steam started coming out of it. Jean swished his also, which lit the steam on fire, and the rug in front of the door was in flames before they could blink.  
  
“Look what you did!” Eren screamed, enraged.  
  
“ME??? This is all you, stupid!”  
  
“SHUT UP.”  
  
Out of nowhere, a blob of water engulfed the rug, extinguishing it, before curling up into itself until it popped out of existence. And, behind the space where the blob used to be, was a very enraged man with dark hair, eyes flaring up so much that they seemed to glow, pointing a wand at them.  
  
“Are you a first year, too? You’re really good!” Eren complimented with a smile, admiration dripping out of every word. Except, they were all the wrong words.  
  
“Shut up, Eren,” Jean whispered, panicking as he watched the man’s lips curl into a sneer.  
  
“ ‘A first year’, you say? Me? And what makes you think that?”  
  
“Um, are you a second year, then? You were the same height as me, so I just thought-“  
  
“You thought what?” The man hissed, pointing his wand straight at Eren’s nose. He seriously had a death sentence, Jean thought.  
  
“…That you’re 11, too, because you're short.” Jean mentally slapped Eren for not being able to keep his mouth shut.  
  
By then, the man’s wand was touching the tip of Eren’s nose. Eren, who had half a mind to grab that offending wand and snap it in half, froze up, unable to move, as though all his bones simply stopped working.  
  
“Eren Jaeger, you will do well to remember me, for the rest of your life, for as long as your damn soul is still attached to that ridiculous brain of yours.”  
  
He would have nodded, had his spine not mysteriously stopped working. Eren wasn’t sure if he was even breathing at this point, but if he wasn’t passing out, he probably was, right?  
  
“Do not ever forget, Eren, who the Head of your House is, who commands you day and night for as long as you remain in this filthy dorm.”  
  
Eren’s eyes stared down at the tip of his nose, where the wand’s tip was glowing, weird pinpricks of light slithering out of it and up the bridge of his nose. There were murmurs all around, only silenced when the short man with the wand shot them a look. After a moment, with a hum of satisfaction, the man retracted his wand, and Eren, suddenly feeling like he was released from some invisible grip, staggered backwards.  
  
“My name is Levi, Head of Gryffindor, and you will only refer to me as ‘Professor Levi’ and nothing else. I expect a written statement of apology by Monday, on my desk, 9AM sharp.”  
  
With another swish of his wand, the scorch marks on the wood were repaired, and a new rug was laid out over it.  
  
“And the rest of you!” Steely gray eyes scanned the scared faces staring back at him, finally resting on Jean as though he knew who shared the blame. Jean had no doubt that this man was probably psychic or something, probably something like a Superman with no kryptonite weakness.  
  
“Have a good evening.”  
  
Those were probably the scariest words the man had ever uttered. With over-enthusiastic nods from the speechless students, he swooshed out of the room.  
  
“Oh boy,” One of the guys breathed out, looking at Eren.  
  
It was definitely going to be hilarious tomorrow, Jean knew, but right now, all he could do was feel relieved that he was not the one with a blinking red sign on his forehead that read, “Gryffindor’s Idiot”.

Eren glared at the door.

"Homework??? School didn't even start, idiot!"

The door slammed open, and everyone screamed as Professor Levi stepped right back in, eyes boring straight into Eren's own petrified ones. He knew he was definitely not under a spell this time, but his bones refused to move again.

"Did I hear something, Mister Jaeger?"

"No!" Eren squeaked, too scared to even shudder.

"That's right. And I expect to hear nothing but the songbirds in the morning and the owls in the evening for the rest of the weekend. Enjoy settling in, and I will see you in class Monday."

With a swoosh of of his cloak, he turned, then looked over his shoulder at Eren once more.

"And Mister Jaeger?"

"Yes, sir!" Jean grimaced at how high pitched Eren's voice had gotten.

"Do not forget your statement of apology."

The door slammed behind him, and there was a collective sigh and a groan from everyone in the room. And, for once, Jean didn't even feel like rubbing Eren's misfortune back into his face this time. His glowing forehead did it for him.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to @ChromeHoplite for keeping me writing!!!!

It was their first day, their first class, and Eren and Jean were late. Not just them, but everyone in their dorm were late. Nobody had set an alarm. Eren had the excuse of having panicked over the apology he had to write and promptly forgotten about until he was already in bed on Sunday night.  
  
“Why do I have to be the only one writing this stupid thing? Jean did it, too,” He had grumbled at first.  
  
“Geez, what century is this school living in? Quills and parchment? They sell perfectly nice pens and notebooks at Staples,” He complained as he opened his bag of supplies for the first time.  
  
“How do you even write with this stupid thing? Oh, you have to dip it in an ink bottle? Why can’t you use pens?” He’d raged, right before he spilled his new bottle of ink all over his pillow because he was too cool to do homework at his desk like proper students should.  
  
“I ripped the parchment,” Eren moaned afterwards.  
  
“I don’t know what to write.”  
  
“This is stupid.”  
  
“This stupid feather won’t write!”  
  
“Can I write with Marley’s feather if I break this one?”  
  
Needless to say, he had kept the whole dorm up for most of the night.  
  
Jean’s excuse for not setting an alarm was simply because he didn’t own a clock or a watch. He figured someone else in the room would have one, and since he wasn’t that deep a sleeper like Eren was, he thought he’d hear it. Except he didn’t factor in the fact that they were all still eleven year olds who thought staying up past 10pm curfew was cool. In the excitement over the first day of magic school, nobody had set an alarm for actually waking up for school.  
  
It was a good thing Eldia was an intelligent barn owl who remembered his school schedule better than he did, because she pecked him awake sometime before class began. He looked at the silent clock hanging on the far wall, and after he deemed it impossible to understand (Audric had tried to explain to him that it showed something about sun and stars, but who needed to know what time it was at the sun when he couldn’t figure out the time right now on Earth?), just rushed to the bathroom to use it before anyone else. By the time he had washed up, other people had gotten woken up by their own familiars and were in a panic. Yep, Jean grimly thought, they were late. And Eren wasn’t even awake with both Marley and Eldia pecking his hair into a nest.  
  
They walked into Defense Against Dark Arts 30 minutes late, and Eren, with his nest of a hair, froze up at the icy glare watching them slink in.  
  
“Tell me, my dear Gryffindor first year boys, how the girls got here thirty minutes early with a nice little present for me,” He pointed to a cool looking silver trinket on his desk that shot up mini-fireworks, “but you are thirty minutes late, and I still don’t have a statement of apology from Eren Jaeger on my desk?”  
  
Jean quickly nudged his brother forward, accidentally using a bit too much force. Eren shot a peeved glared back at him, but said nothing as he stomped over to Professor Levi’s desk, hand digging into his bag.  
  
“I have it ready, sir, it’s definitely in here, let me just…”  
  
Even Jean had the sense to just carry his book and dinky parchment rolls to class, than try and force the draping robe sleeves in through the straps of their old Jansport backpacks. He had tried, of course, last night when he had excitedly gathered his materials for class. And it just wasn’t going to work. Normal stuff just weren’t convenient in this school. They were twins, but even in his eyes, Eren was a whole other level of stupid.  
  
As Eren tried to pull off his backpack, he swung it a little too hard in an attempt to get his sleeve untangled, toppling over the gift Levi had just mentioned.  
  
“Oops,” Eren sheepishly grinned as Levi’s eyes turned to slits and his lips pursed menacingly.  
  
That didn’t stop Eren, though. He shoved his arm into his backpack, digging out the assignment, and spilling the contents in the process (why there was a whole bunch of straws in there, Jean didn’t even want to know). Then, of course, his sleeve got caught on the zipper again, and the backpack swung once more, knocking over the ink bottle and drenching the book beside it.  
  
“Stop!” Levi swung his wand. Eren froze in position once more, and Levi, after cleaning up the mess in front of him with the most disgusted look Jean has ever seen, magically whipped out the offending parchment out of Eren’s poor Jansport.  
  
Jean could hear people fidgeting nervously, especially when Levi opened up the parchment and his eyes seemed to light up on fire literally.  
  
“Did you not learn how to write, Eren? What is this damn chicken scratch I see?”  
  
Eren couldn’t answer.  
  
“Answer me!!!”  
  
“I… The quill was hard to use…”  
  
Jean swore for weeks afterwards that he saw literal flames flaring out of Levi’s nose.  
  
“Eren Jaeger, do you need to go back to primary school to learn how to write??”  
  
If it would get him away from this asshole teacher, he thought he might prefer it, actually. But he kept his mouth shut on this one. That was just about the only thing he could control at the moment, anyways.  
  
“And you call three sentences a ‘statement of apology’? Are you purposely shitting on me right now?”  
  
There was a collective gasp from around the room as the children witnessed the use of vulgar language in the holy sanctuary that is their classroom. Jean felt a swell of admiration at the cool cussing professor, as scary as he was.  
  
“But that’s all I had to say,” Eren mumbled.  
  
Levi practically growled at him.  
  
“One week detention, Jaeger. Every evening after dinner, you come to my office, and you will learn to fucking write like a human,” he hissed.  
  
“That’s not fair! I’m not the only one with bad handwriting!”  
  
The moment Professor Levi’s lips curled into a smile, Eren wished he could take back his burst of anger.  
  
“Congratulations, Gryffindor and Hufflepuff first years. First day of school, and this very special student has just won you all a week of detention, in this classroom, every evening at 8PM, starting today.”

  
  
The news had spread before lunch had even begun about the legendary first year kid who’d put a whole class into detention. From what Jean had picked up from the whispers, apparently it was a big deal that Hufflepuffs even got detention. Wherever they went, people seemed to know that Eren was that kid. A few even stumbled out of the way with wide eyes as Eren passed by them, while others just huddled closer together and pointed. Jean was almost embarrassed to walk beside his own brother.  
Even when they got to the Gryffindor tables for lunch, the whispers didn’t seem to end, which was kind of ridiculous. With this many people in a huge room, one would think that people had the sense to talk in a normal tone of voice. It seemed like the world was out to piss Eren off.  
  
“Shut up!!!” He finally burst out, when one too many people peered at his face as they passed by the table.  
  
Jean didn’t really know what to say to Eren. He really felt bad for him, but they had never had to console each other before. How to piss him off, how to punch him to effectively ruin his face for the next two weeks, he was an expert. But how to show him some support? He knew as much about that as he knew how to perform heart surgery. Just stab and open, right?  
  
“Just ignore them,” Jean said. Eren growled and slammed his fist on the table, toppling over his cup of pumpkin juice. Well… He tried, Jean supposed.  
  
As he watched the spillage magically get sucked down into the wood and the goblet right itself, refilled to the brim with pumpkin juice again, he wondered how detention would be like in the magical world. The two of them had spent about as much time in the detention room as they had in their actual classroom, back in their worn down public school in Trost. Sometimes they had to write a sentence of apology two hundred times, and sometimes they had to pick up trash in the cafeteria. But most of the time, it was to sit down in silence and stare down the assistant teacher for an hour before they were released. What kind of punishment did the magical world give them? All their methods seemed to be sort of old fashioned, so did they whack their hands with rulers? Tie them up onto some wooden contraption and stretch out their limbs? The Iron Maiden???  
  
“Hey, you’re Eren, right?”  
  
Jean snapped out of his thoughts to find a boy with freckles and a yellow badge on his robe smiling at them. He was a Hufflepuff, and for a brief moment, Jean braced himself, in case the boy had come to pick a fight with them.  
  
“Yeah? So?”  
  
Eren growled, absolutely pissed off at all the attention. He relished attention, but not any of this sort, where he was becoming a laughingstock of the school. He hated all their stupid faces, he hated Professor Levi, he hated this school. He hated the boy smiling at him.  
  
“I’m Marco, a Hufflepuff second year. I heard that you put our entire group of first years into a week of detention for having bad writing.”  
  
Eren pushed himself up, glaring at the boy. Marco was taller than him by a few inches, but Eren had dealt with boys much bigger before. Taking him down would be a piece of cake if it came down to it.  
  
“And what? Are you here to fight me for it?”  
  
Jean got up as well, eyeing a few Hufflepuffs making their way down the aisle towards them.  
  
“No, of course not!” The freckled boy frantically shook his head, eyes widening in alarm, “I’m not here to fight at all. I just wanted to give you some help. You see, I’m a muggle-born too, and I struggled with writing with a quill last year myself.”  
  
And suddenly, in Eren’s eyes, this guy was a fellow comrade.  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“I don’t know if you know about it, but there’s a small club of sorts for Muggle-born witches and wizards, and we sort of stick together to help each other out, especially when it comes to first years. We had a meeting over the weekend before the first day to teach the first years about quills, but I guess you didn’t know about it.”  
  
Well, now that Eren thought about it, Armin might have mentioned something like that in the train, but how was he supposed to remember when there were intelligent chocolate frogs waging war with him and jelly beans that tasted like barf?  
  
“So I was thinking, do you see that kid over there, down the table? That’s Bertolt. He’s a 4th year Muggle-born Gryffindor, and he’s really shy, but if you go and ask him for help, he’ll help.”  
  
The super tall kid halfway down the table shyly lifted his hand in a wave before ducking back down to his plate. He seemed like a pushover, in Eren’s eyes.  
  
“How’s he gonna help? Can he magically give me better handwriting? Or make Levi not be mad at me? Or make the school stop whispering like all the stupid aunts who lived across the street?”  
  
“Um, no,” Marco awkwardly responded, “but he could help you practice your quill and find your way around?”  
  
Eren sat back down and turned away.  
  
“No thanks, then. I’m already in trouble, so there’s no point.”  
  
“Oh. Well, if you ever need any help, we’re here so just let us know, okay? And don’t feel too down, I got detention from Levi loads of times.”  
  
“Really?” Jean spoke up, “For what???”  
  
Marco grinned sheepishly as a Hufflepuff boy tapped his shoulder and motioned for him to hurry up.  
  
“Well, let’s just say I gave Levi a culture shock. I’ll see you guys later!”  
  
The boy hurried after the other Hufflepuff members with a wave. Eren growled into his sandwich.  
  
“I’ll give that Levi a culture shock, alright…”  
  
Jean didn’t even want to know what Eren was planning anymore. Hopefully nobody else caught on that they were actually twins.  
  
  
  
Charms lesson was a whole new set of ordeals. Their professor, Erwin Smith, seemed nice enough… If one was able to ignore the way his hair seemed to glow in the light, or the way all the girls seemed entranced by his every motion. Even Jean felt a weird tightening feeling in his chest when he first saw Erwin smiling and welcoming them into the room.  
  
“Welcome, Gryffindors and Slytherins. In this class, you will be learning all about charms.”  
  
He flashed a smile to the class, and Jean swore he heard everyone’s heart skip a beat. Even Eren seemed to be finally out of his state of rage, eyes wide and enraptured.  
  
“I will be teaching you everything you need to know about charming other people, from the basics, such as this,” He flicked the end of his wand, and a red rose floated up from his desk, landing on the desk of a Slytherin girl. Her cheeks flushed scarlet as she held the rose to her chest with a huge smile, looking up at the professor with adoration.  
  
“… To more elaborate charms, such as this.”  
  
This time, Professor Erwin did not do a single thing but wink. There was a collective sigh from all around the room, the hazy atmosphere of love thickening. Eren sighed, completely enchanted by the Charm professor’s charm, and almost missed the actual magic charm Erwin had just performed. In fact, nobody would have been able to snap out of their stupor, had it not been for that. Out of nowhere, huge blobs of water floated above everyone’s heads, and fell on them a few seconds after the wink.  
  
“Now,” Erwin spoke up over the screeching and sputtering group of drenched students, his tone of voice no longer enticing, and Jean realized in a single horrifying moment, that his voice was the charm. This stupid professor had been charming them all from the moment they’d stepped into the room, and everyone had been attracted to him like fridge magnets on metal. Jean suddenly felt really repulsed by it.  
  
“I expect everyone’s full attention and focus when we are practicing spells. A single mistake, and you could ruin someone’s life. Some mistakes are irreversible, even by magic, so it is very important that you focus, especially so that you do not become caught unawares again.”  
  
And for the rest of the lesson, as they tried to make feathers float, Jean could see everyone blushing pink and also looking very confused whenever Professor Erwin approached them to help. Eren, for his part, was angrier than ever, muttering about killing all the teachers… And promptly set his feather on fire.  
  
  
  
That evening, Eren and Jean, along with their fellow first years, slunk into Levi’s classroom right on time at 8PM. The Gryffindor 1st year girls, not wanting a repeat of that morning, had practically herded the boys together, making sure every single one of them were present and prepared before heading down.  
  
The moment they opened the door, it was suddenly a whole different classroom. The stark blankness of the room they had seen during the day was almost nonexistent.  
  
There were silver candles floating practically everywhere, giving the room a very mystical look, and the desks were all pushed off to the side. In the center of the room was a single quill, floating in mid-air. swaying just a tiny bit.  
  
“Sit.”  
  
Jean had no idea where Professor Levi was, but at the sound of the voice, he quickly made his way around the quill, sitting in a lopsided circle with the other students.  
  
“This is the quill we will be using to practice. Eren, you first.”  
  
Eren was kind of scared. Who knew what that quill would do to him? He could lose an arm in a blink of an eye, for all he knew. He might grow a second head, or turn into a chocolate frog and get eaten by that red haired girl over there. He got up carefully, keeping hold of the hem of his robe sleeves as he approached the quill.  
  
“On the air, you will write as I dictate, Eren. Do you understand? I tell you the sentence, you write it.”  
  
He nodded.  
  
“ ‘I, Eren Jaeger’,” Levi began, stepping out from a shadow nobody had noticed.  
  
Eren, gulping, scratched out the words into the air, and a sparkling red shimmer wrote itself out like ink. Everyone could see exactly how appalling his handwriting truly was, but kept quiet as Levi continued to dictate, and the paragraph grew longer in mid-air, scrolling upwards as though it was on a transparent parchment.  
  
“ ‘…and thus will learn from my humble mistakes.’ Good, Eren, well done.”  
  
The sudden compliment surprised Eren, who looked up at the professor. Levi nodded back at him, and Eren, his heart swelling with a sense of accomplishment, smiled and sat back down.  
  
“Now, Connie Springer! Get up here.”  
  
A Hufflepuff boy with a buzz cut stepped up to the quill, grabbing it, but it didn’t budge.  
  
“No, Springer, you won’t be needing that. Now, do you see what Eren has written here?”  
  
“Yes sir.”  
  
“Read it out loud.”  
  
Eren’s grin dropped, and Levi’s lips curled up evilly.  
  
“Read it out loud, and if any sentence here does not match what I have dictated, we will be repeating this until it does.”  
  
“Y-yes sir.”  
  
“Read it.”  
  
Connie gulped, giving a wary glance at Eren, and began.  
  
“I, Eren Jaeger, am a h-horrible student who billed the carrot-“  
  
“Jaeger! Back up here.”  
  
Levi pointed at the phrase in question.  
  
“Pray tell, Eren. What does this phrase say?”  
  
“Um… ‘Burned the carpet’?”  
  
“Is that so? I wonder why Springer here thought differently then. I guess you’ll have to write it again for him.”  
  
With a swish of his wand, the glowing letters disappeared, and the quill quivered again. This was humiliation! This was worse than any detention he’s ever had before!  
Eren’s nostrils flared angrily as he narrowed his eyes at his professor. Levi, his eyes practically glowing silver under the candlelight, sneered.  
  
“I dictate, you write. Understand?”  
  
“Perfectly,” Eren spat out through clenched teeth.  
  
  
  
“I hate Professor Levi,” Eren groaned into his plate of waffles. They were pumpkin waffles, and honestly, as luxurious as all the food was, Jean was getting really damn tired of pumpkin. He still didn’t know how to get juice that wasn’t pumpkin juice, but he was too proud to ask anyone about it.  
  
“You should learn to keep your mouth shut, then,” Jean advised, trying to figure out which breakfast pastry would not have pumpkin filling.  
  
“You shut up!” Eren immaturely retorted.  
  
Their detention lasted almost twice as long as their regular class, and even then, Professor Levi had not been altogether satisfied with Eren’s handwriting. Most of the other students had more or less memorized the statement halfway through, and ‘read’ the statement without really reading what Eren had written. His handwriting had improved, though, and as he took notes during the History of Magic lecture, he felt his hand writing more fluidly. He still preferred ball point pens and pencils, though. And he was definitely not looking forward to four more days of that torture.  
  
  
  
Jean thought his favorite lesson in the whole school would be Herbology. There was no way the magical world’s set of plants could be THAT different from plants in the normal world, right? He’d been excited that it was finally something that he was actually familiar with. Back at the orphanage, Mrs. Higgins the headmaster had a small garden in the back that she made all the kids take turns watering and weeding. Jean was pretty sure he knew how to grow a tomato, at the very least, and he probably could not fuck up a cactus. The greenhouse seemed so inviting, too, like one of those pretty glass houses with lots of greenery that he’d seen in the interior magazines at the headmaster’s office.  
  
He couldn’t have been more wrong.  
  
The magical world had plants that screamed. Screamed so loud that even with ear muffs, it was painful to listen to. Plants that screamed so loud that it was the stuff of nightmares. Jean was mortified to learn about mandrakes.  
  
“These are baby mandrakes, so listening to their cries will only stun you. But full grown mandrake screams will kill you instantly, so be careful. Before you pull them out of the soil, you have to make sure your ear muffs are properly put on,” Professor Longbottom instructed them, checking everyone’s muffs before grabbing the stem of a plant and pulling it out of the soil. The root that came out under it, with a high pitched screech, looked like a baby. A wooden, living, root baby.  
  
He was so mortified that he stared at Eren in horror, who looked equally mortified as he screamed. Jean couldn’t hear Eren’s voice at all, but his mouth seemed to be repeating a lot of “WHAT THE FUCK!”  
  
Professor Longbottom waved his arms wildly to get their attention, and when all the students’ eyes, wide and mortified as they were, were back on him, he held up his baby mandrake by its stem. Pointing to the tendrils of roots splitting out of what was presumably the gross wooden root baby’s foot, he picked up a pair of gardening scissors, and snipped them.  
  
A girl somewhere in the back fainted, and Jean wished he could faint, too, as he watched that baby mandrake scream and writhe in agony, held by its hair in Professor Longbottom’s grip. This was possibly the longest class hour of his life, and that was including Professor Levi’s horrific class the day before. In fact, Jean felt like he preferred Professor Levi’s class, if it meant that he didn’t need to stare into this wailing baby’s face anymore.  
  
  
  
“I can’t do this.”  
  
Jean had somehow staggered into Transfiguration class safely and in time, but he and Eren were completely worn out from the mortification that was the mandrake babies. Even Eren was pretty quiet, and Jean had thought this was something Eren might have been excited to gloat about.  
  
A petite looking woman with strawberry blond hair stood in the front of the room, smiling at them as they walked in. Jean didn’t trust that smile anymore, glowering as he took his seat near the back of the room. This whole whack school was filled with con artists, and that Slytherin asshole Charms teacher was at the top of that list. (Professor Levi was probably at the top of the list of psychotic serial killers.) He was definitely not falling for stupid fancy tricks anymore.  
  
“Good morning, first years. My name is Petra Ral, and I am looking forward to an exciting year with you all!”  
  
She began with a demonstration, transforming a flower into a fountain pen… Wait, a fountain pen??? They know what that is???  
  
Jean slammed his hands on the desk, standing up with an incredulous stare at the fountain pen sitting on the table in front of Professor Ral.  
  
“Is something the matter, Jean?” She pleasantly asked.  
  
“If you know what a fountain pen is, why the fuck do you force us to write with fucking feathers???”  
  
“Yeah!!!” Eren angrily joined in after hearing Jean’s complaint. That thought hadn’t even occurred to him, but now that Jean pointed it out, it was ridiculous. Seriously, why couldn’t they buy some cheap pens from Staples?? Eren was pretty sure one of them gold gallons or something that Armin showed him in the train could buy more than ten boxes of those.  
  
“We do use fountain pens, Jean,” Professor Ral patiently explained, ignoring the snickers of several fellow students who probably found it damn funny that they were “Muggle borns.” Jean hated that word.  
  
“But in school, we want to help everyone train and learn to use the traditional tools first, in order to understand the complexities of other technology.”  
Jean rolled his eyes, sighing loudly.  
  
“But why is it important that I know how to write with a quill when there are perfectly available pens?”  
  
“Like I said—“  
  
“But why??? What does learning how to write with a feather teach me about writing with pens?”  
  
Petra opened and closed her mouth, fumbling for words to say in response, but Eren interjected, continuing Jean’s train of thought.  
  
“Why are you making your own life so difficult? You do all these magical things, turning flowers into pigs and turkeys, but you can’t even see that pens are more efficient. Are you really a teacher?”  
  
With quivering lips and cheeks rapidly flushing red, Professor Ral silently rushed out of the room, leaving the whole class stunned. Jean could swear he saw a tear fall from the teacher’s eye as she swooshed past him… But he didn’t have time to linger on that thought any longer before the door slammed back open, and there was a furious Professor Levi standing there, with a sobbing Professor Ral behind him.  
  
“Mister Jaeger, Mister Kirstein… Follow. Me.”  
  
The narrowing storm gray eyes left no room for any excuses. Mutely, Eren and Jean nodded, picking up their books as the followed Professor Levi back out of the room, down the hall, up several flights of stairs, and into the Defense Against Dark Arts classroom, passing the amused and surprised older students as they headed towards the office on the alcove above. There was a slight ripple of the air as Professor Levi entered first, and, suspiciously eyeing the decorative steel entry frame, Eren followed in after him.  
  
The room was definitely not as small as it seemed from the outside. All the bookshelves, the desk, chairs… Everything was there, exactly as he had seen them from the outside, except they were more spaced out somehow. Something like a fan that had been folded, and now opened.  
  
Levi whirled around to stare hard at them, and Eren, in his awe of the room, nearly ran into the professor.  
  
“Eren Jaeger, Jean Kirstein. I have had enough of your bullshit. Extend your arms.”  
  
Confused, Jean spread open his arms like an eagle, and Eren did the same, thinking Jean probably knew what he was doing. The sleeves of their robes were long enough to be wings, and this did seem like one of those weird things magical teachers felt the need to inspect for no reason. Levi’s eye twitched.  
  
“Will you two stop being idiots for five seconds?”  
  
“But you were vague,” Jean mumbled, dropping his arms. Eren kept his up.  
  
“Stop looking at me like that,” Levi snapped, whipping out his wand, “And show me your arms.”  
Eren and Jean shot their arms out forward, Eren nearly jabbing Levi in a sensitive area below his stomach with his swing. Scowling at the oblivious boy, Levi pressed the tip of his wand to the inner side of Eren and Jean’s right arms, just under the fold line of their elbow, where tendrils of light swirled out once again, tattooing their skin with a branch drawing.  
  
“A tattoo!” Eren exclaimed in delight.  
  
“No.”  
  
The branch on each of their arms had five small branches, and with one tiny flick of Levi’s wand, one twig on Eren’s and Jean’s branch blossomed into a red flower.  
  
“Cool!”  
  
Jean thought it was cool, too, but Levi’s sinister smile kept his mouth shut.  
  
“This is how it’s going to work from now on, Eren, Jean. You get in trouble, you get another flower. Make a teacher cry, punch a fellow student, burn another carpet… Even a stupid, snarky insult. Anything that gets you in trouble gives you a flower. Five flowers, and that charm on your arm will give you your due punishment.”  
  
“Does this mean no more evening detention?” Eren asked, hopeful. He kind of preferred this punishment to the public humiliation he received last night. The professor, his lips curling into an even more sinister smile (if that were possible), tucked his wand back into his sleeve.  
  
“Try skipping out, and see what happens.”  
  
Jean didn’t think he wanted to skip out.  
  
“Well… What’s the punishment?”  
  
“You’ll just have to wait and find out, don’t you?”  
  
Eren stared at the branch for a few seconds, before resolutely looking up at Levi. Jean recognized that look immediately, stepping backwards as Eren’s lips curled up. God, why was his brother so damn stupid? Don’t do it, he prayed in his head, even though he knew exactly what Eren was going to do.  
  
“Professor Levi is so short, you can’t find him if he’s standing behind a table!”  
  
Levi narrowed his eyes menacingly as Eren gleefully watched another flower bloom on his arm.  
  
“You little shit-“  
  
“Professor Levi is so short, I bet he needs a step ladder to get to the toilet!”  
  
Another flower bloomed, and Jean, both horrified and curious, took one more step back, wondering if Eren was going to blow up. That definitely sounded like something Professor Levi would do, if that snarling face had anything to say about it.”  
  
“Professor Levi is so short, he probably thinks he lives in the world of giants.”  
  
“Eren Jaeger, I’m warning you-“  
  
Eren sneered manically as a fourth flower bloomed, staring at the furious professor.  
  
“Professor Levi is so short, He needs the Charms teacher to hoist him up everywhere.”  
  
Something in Eren’s vicinity exploded as Levi simultaneously whipped out his wand, and Jean was temporarily blinded by the flashing explosion of color in his face. When he coughed out what was apparently confetti stuck on his tongue, brushing away other colorful tissue paper clinging to his robe, and focused back on his brother, Jean found himself looking at a clown. A fully dressed, rainbow haired, red nosed, pasty faced clown. The ‘robe’ was striped with color and sparkles, there was a huge frilly collar that had bells hanging on the edges, and his shoes were now oversized and red. The only way Jean knew that was Eren was the amber eyes staring at him in mortification. Eren opened his mouth to say something, but all Jean heard was HONK HONK HONK!  
  
Horrified, Jean’s eyes trailed over to their professor, who had apparently shielded himself from the blast. There was a circle around him completely devoid of the confetti that had flown everywhere. With a distasteful look, Levi tucked his wand back into his sleeve.  
  
“I warned you, Eren, and now look what you’ve done. Jean, your detention task today will be to locate every single Hufflepuff and Gryffindor first year and personally tell them, with Eren beside you, that they are no longer required to attend detention for the rest of the week. And Eren…”  
  
Levi smirked at that, and as Eren made a face as though to whine, he let out a very loud and droning HOOOOOONNNKKK that seemed to echo in the room. He stomped his foot, his large red shoe flapping, and it quacked. Jean had to clap his hand over his mouth hard to keep from making a noise.  
  
“Do not try to get rid of the charm yourself, and do not think that anyone in this school will help you to get rid of that. It will wear off by the end of the week. Oh, and do apologize to dear Professor Ral. I’m sure you will make her first teaching day at Hogwarts soooo much more memorable.”  
  
Eren honked furiously.  
  
The confetti in the room seemed to melt away and disappear as Levi headed back towards the alcove entryway, and Jean whimpered behind his hands as Eren morosely honked and quacked behind him.  
  
“Let this be a lesson for you both. Being Muggle-borns does not excuse your ignorance in common courtesy. If I hear one more damn complaint about the two of you, I will personally make sure you two are retrained to be civilized humans once more. Now, go back to class.”  
  
As Jean followed Levi past the steel entryway, the chattering sounds of the class below them suddenly turned up again, as though someone had unmuted their conversations… But they were quickly silenced as they watched Levi and Jean coming back down the stairs with a tinkling, honking, and quacking Eren behind them.  
  
“Oh shit, he really did it…”  
  
“Don’t you remember when Dean last year did the same…”  
  
“Isn’t he a first year?”  
  
Jean quickly passed the rows of tables, flushing as Eren quacked behind him.  
  
“Don’t forget your task, Mister Kirstein,” Levi called out just as they stepped out of the room.  
  
“Fuck,” Jean muttered, torn between wanting to laugh at Eren and cry about it. Eren honked.  
  
  
  
  
The two of them managed to find all the first years to notify them of their detention status, enduring the amused sympathies from everyone in the school. Even their Charms teacher had stopped by their table during dinner to tell Eren how sorry he was for Levi’s colorful punishment on him. Eren literally could not say anything that wasn’t honking, so he just honked sadly and stared down at his plate.  
  
Jean stared down at his own branch, wondering if thinking about insulting the professor might trigger it as well. It was only their second day, and he didn’t know how magic really worked. For all he knew, Levi could have incredible psychic powers and could hear everything he was thinking.  
  
‘Professor Levi is the best teacher in the whole world,’ Jean repeated inside his head three times as a precaution.  
  
“Have some of the butternut squash soup. You’ll feel better.”  
  
The twins looked up as a girl with dark hair and a Gryffindor’s badge slipped into the seat beside Eren, nudging a bowl towards him. Eren quietly nodded, picking up a spoon.  
  
To be honest, Jean had never noticed her before, but she must have been one of the first year girls that got Professor Levi that fireworks thing on his desk. She looked smart, her eyes seeming to read them easily like books, though there was something familiar about the silver and intense look that he couldn’t quite shake off. Maybe it was the strings of destiny pulling him towards his fated other. Her skin seemed to glow in the candlelight, her lips full and pink, and her hair was so silky looking and dark, it framed her face so perfectly…  
  
Lifting up a spoonful, Eren opened his mouth to eat when another long and droning HOOOOOONKKKK escaped from his throat. HONK… HONK, HONK, HONK, he cried, dropping the spoon and burying his face into his arms. His bells tinkled madly as he shook, his shoes quacked wildly as he stomped under the table. The girl with dark hair and beautiful eyes sympathetically patted Eren on the back, offering him some bread instead.  
  
“You have really pretty hair!” Jean blurted, flushing red as he gaped in mortification. The girl stared in surprise as well, cheeks blushing a bit.  
  
‘So pretty,’ Jean couldn’t stop thinking.  
  
“HOOONKK?” Eren sat up and stared, open mouthed. This was one of those times Eren would have jumped on the opportunity to make fun of him, so Jean was relieved all he could do was honk.  
  
There was a sudden prickle on his arm, and Jean stared down at the branch charm as it bloomed a second flower, then a confusing third, then a horrifying fourth, then a suffocating fifth…  
  
Then Jean was enveloped in a huge gust of wind and a pop, and when he opened his eyes, Eren was gaping at him with a loud HOOOOOOONNKKK. There were quite a few people staring at him as well, and some more groaning at the amount of confetti that had littered the entire table, sinking into goblets and soups and sauces. They were instantly replaced by magical new un-confetti-ed versions, but the magical table did nothing to help the confetti attached to the students’ robes.  
  
“Don’t even think about flirting with my sister.”

Jean jumped back in surprise with a huge HOOOOOONKKKK of his own. There was Levi, standing right behind him, a hand on the shoulder of the dark haired girl with intense looking eyes, who looked a little sorry for her part. Ah… So that’s why she was so familiar, Jean thought, wailing with a morose HONK as he stared at his colorful sleeves.  
  
HONK HONK HONK HONK, Eren laughed, honking hard as he clutched his stomach, pointing at his clown brother. His collar bells tinkled madly, and his stomping feet quacked wildly, but nothing made him laugh any less.  
  
Jean would have retorted right back with snarky remarks, but as it was, all the both of them could do was honk at each other’s painted faces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, clowns freak me out. I'm probably going to make a lot of bad clown jokes in future chapters, and I hope nobody who is in the profession feels offended if they come across my tiny corner of the universe and see them.
> 
> Also, I started this fic with the intention of it being more Eren and Jean taking over the world, but I feel like it's turning into more of a "I want many scenes of levi making people shit their pants". but i like it?????

**Author's Note:**

> I'm gonna be honest, I don't know how orphanages really work. But I assume, if they get children with no names provided, the school just gives them whatever name they like, right?
> 
> Also, I heard that bat meat is actually really healthy for you. Apparently, many tribes in Africa still hunt and roast bats over a fire and eat them. I hear it kind of tastes like really expensive pork???? (I've never tried expensive pork, or bats, so I wouldn't know...)
> 
> and chocolate frogs are really weird to eat, if you think about it. Hasn't anyone ever gotten grossed out having to bite down onto one while it's moving and potentially alive and hopping around for survival???


End file.
